Flight

Soyuz 4 successfully lifted off from
Launch Complex 31. 24 hours later it was followed by
Soyuz 5 from Launch Complex 1. After the problems with
Soyuz 3, a first-revolution docking was
not planned. Instead the automatic rendezvous began on January 16, 1969 at
13:37
UTC on the 34th revolution of
Soyuz 4 and the 18th
revolution of
Soyuz 5. At 100 m distance Vladimir
Shatalov took over manual control of
Soyuz 4 and guided the spacecraft to an
accurate docking on the first attempt at 14:20
UTC.

Soyuz 5 docked with
Soyuz 4, which had the active part.
The two spacecrafts were electrical and mechanically connected, but there was
no direct way from one spaceship to the other. It was the first docking of
manned spacecrafts. The
Soyuz 5 cosmonauts Yevgeni
Khrunov and Aleksei
Yeliseyev entered the Soyuz 4 in a spacewalk on January 16, 1969 (0h 37m).
Yevgeni
Khrunov and Aleksei
Yeliseyev put on their Yastreb ("hawk") suits in the
Soyuz 5 orbital module with aid from
Commander
Boris Volynov. Yastreb suit design commenced in 1965, shortly after
Aleksei
Leonovs difficult
EVA.
Aleksei
Leonov served as consultant for the design process, which was
completed during 1966. Suit fabrication and testing occurred in 1967, but the
fatal Soyuz 1 accident in April of that
year and docking difficulties on the joint
Soyuz 2-Soyuz
3 mission delayed its use in space until
Soyuz 4-Soyuz 5. To prevent the suit ballooning, Yastreb
featured a pulley-and-cable articulation system. Wide metal rings around the
gray nylon canvas undersuit's upper arms served as anchors for the upper body
articulation system. Yastreb had a regenerative life support system in a
rectangular white metal box placed on the chest and abdomen to facilitate
movement through
Soyuz hatchways. Boris
Volynov checked out Yevgeni
Khrunov and Aleksei
Yeliseyevs life support and communications systems
before returning to the descent module, sealing the hatch, and depressurizing
the orbital module.

Yevgeni
Khrunov and Aleksei
Yeliseyev aboard
Soyuz 5 immediately began preparing for their
EVA.
On the 35th revolution of the earth Yevgeni
Khrunov exited into free space and began moving toward
Soyuz 4. But one of his lines became
tangled and he accidentally closed the tumbler of his suit ventilator. He
quickly untied this, but the incident distracted Aleksei
Yeliseyev, who forgot to mount a movie camera on the divan of
the orbital module before exiting the spacecraft. This deprived the world of
the planned film of the spacewalk. A poor quality video transmission was the
only record of the
EVA
(0h 37m).Yevgeni
Khrunov was transferring to the
Soyuz 4 orbital module while the docked
spacecraft were out of radio contact with the Soviet Union over South America.
Aleksei
Yeliseyev transferred while the spacecraft were over the
Soviet Union.

After pressurization of the
Soyuz 4 capsule they were greeted by
cosmonaut Vladimir
Shatalov in the Soyuz
4 capsule. The spacewalkers delivered newspapers, letters, and telegrams
printed after Vladimir
Shatalov lifted off to help prove that the transfer took
place.

Soyuz 4 and 5 separated
after 4 hours and 35 minutes docked together. All three cosmonauts landed with
the Soyuz 4 spacecraft. Scientific
(medical and biological) and technical experiments were also performed, but all
in all it were tests of lunar landing techniques. The mission proved it was
possible to perform the activities that would be needed on a Soviet lunar
landing. The Russian plan called for a lone cosmonaut to land on the moon,
return to lunar orbit, then make a spacewalk back from the landing craft to
orbiting spacecraft after docking. This was because there was no internal
tunnel between the two craft as found on the American Apollo
CSM and
LM.

The
Soyuz spacecraft is composed of three elements
attached end-to-end - the Orbital Module, the Descent Module and the
Instrumentation/Propulsion Module. The crew occupied the central element, the
Descent Module. The other two modules are jettisoned prior to re-entry. They
burn up in the atmosphere, so only the Descent Module returned to
Earth.Having shed two-thirds of its mass, the
Soyuz reached Entry Interface - a point 400,000 feet
above the Earth, where friction due to the thickening atmosphere began to heat
its outer surfaces. With only 23 minutes left before it lands on the grassy
plains of central Asia, attention in the module turned to slowing its rate of
descent.Eight minutes later, the spacecraft was streaking through the sky
at a rate of 755 feet per second. Before it touched down, its speed slowed to
only 5 feet per second, and it lands at an even lower speed than that. Several
onboard features ensure that the vehicle and crew land safely and in relative
comfort.Four parachutes, deployed 15 minutes before landing, dramatically
slowed the vehicle's rate of descent. Two pilot parachutes were the first to be
released, and a drogue chute attached to the second one followed immediately
after. The drogue, measuring 24 square meters (258 square feet) in area, slowed
the rate of descent from 755 feet per second to 262 feet per second.The
main parachute was the last to emerge. It is the largest chute, with a surface
area of 10,764 square feet. Its harnesses shifted the vehicle's attitude to a
30-degree angle relative to the ground, dissipating heat, and then shifted it
again to a straight vertical descent prior to landing.The main chute slowed
the
Soyuz to a descent rate of only 24 feet per second,
which is still too fast for a comfortable landing. One second before touchdown,
two sets of three small engines on the bottom of the vehicle fired, slowing the
vehicle to soften the landing.

Boris
Volynov remained on
Soyuz 5. During the re-entry the service module failed
to separate after retrofire resulting in nose-first re-entry, which would have
meant a sure death of the cosmonaut. In the last moment the bolts connecting
the service module to the reentry capsule finally burned through and the
capsule turned around, heat shield forward, just before the forward hatch
melted. All capsule propellant was exhausted and the cosmonaut made a 9-g
uncontrolled reentry, landing hundreds of kilometers short. There was one final
problem in store for Boris
Volynov when the parachute cables partially tangled. It was
one of the hardest landings in space history and Boris
Volynov broke his jaw and lost several teeth. The local
temperature was -38 °C (-36 °F), and knowing that it would be many
hours before rescue teams could reach him, Boris
Volynov abandoned the capsule and walked for several
kilometers to find shelter at a local peasant's house.

The crew were to
meet Leonid Brezhnev during a lavish ceremony at the Kremlin, but this was
ruined by an attempted assassination of the Soviet leader. A man shot eight
times at the motorcade but aimed at the car containing Georgi
Beregovoy, Aleksei
Leonov, Andriyan
Nikolayev, and Valentina
Tereshkova. They were unharmed but Brezhnev's car was forced
to speed away past the waiting Soyuz 4
and
Soyuz 5 crews on the podium.